Once again it’s that time when all the SXSW folks start pitching to anyone with a pulse their panel ideas for voting. I’m no different although I try to keep it to a minimum.
Lately SXSW has been awash is social media and marketing sessions (even my session with Chris Heuer earlier this year fell into that category). This time around, I’ve proposed a solo session on something a little different, something that I’m very passionate about and hope that it will inspire attendees like I was inspired in my first years attending SXSW when there were a lot more creative sessions that had less to do with the web, but rather helped inspire you to make the web better.
So what is it? Well, it’s a session about creating timelapse movies, which are basically still frames shown in sequence. Here’s a couple of samples:
While not directly related to the ‘interactive’ side of SXSW, they have been trying to overlap & commingle the film audience the last few years. I considered submitting this to the Film program but figure the filmmakers would already know how to make these. I’ve given a version of this presentation at Northern Voice during PhotoCamp and plan to expand it and include some new content, especially given the larger time slot. Based on the feedback I received from Northern Voice attendees, my hope is that this session will help inspire people that haven’t considered making these kinds of movies because either they didn’t know how to or didn’t think they had the right gear – both points (and more) will be covered off (short answer is that it’s easy and you can make these with just about any camera, you don’t really need special, expensive gear to do it).
Whether you’re planning on attending or not, please considering giving me a thumbs up vote for my submission, called Create Timelapse movies without a Flux Capacitor – it only takes a minute to signup if you don’t already have an account. Although it only counts for 30% of the total score as to whether it will be accepted, it’s still an important component of getting in.
Thanks and I look forward to seeing you in Austin next year!
It’s been a few weeks since I got back from Texas and I’ve finally had a chance to put into words my experiences at this year’s annual ‘geek summer camp’.
This time around, unlike previous years that I’ve attended SXSWi, I had no plans beyond my own panel which fortunately was on the first day of the conference. Being my first large scale talk, and at SXSW of all places, I was anxious about it right until I met up with my co-panelist, Chris Heuer, in the green room before the session.
Chris, being a veteran SXSW speaker, put me at ease immediately…he’s awesome like that.
It was also exciting to find out as we made our way to our panel room that it was full and people were actually sitting on the floor. I had no idea what to expect for our little panel topic so to hear that many people were interested in what we had to say was incredibly encouraging.
It was even cooler to discover that the signboard out in front of our session had been ‘defaced’ in a positive way:
The session went very well…we were very fortunate that many of the folks that turned up were very vocal about the issues and once Chris and I got the ball rolling, the room took over. Someone joked that it turned into the Phil Donahue show as we had a queue of people that wanted to either voice their opinion, respond to someone else’s or ask a question to us and the room. There was some people that left and reading some of the comments/tweets after the fact it was mostly due to the fact that we were all over the place as far as cool kids vs suit issues. I concede that was a problem and we tried to steer things back on track but it was also interesting to see the room discuss things organically so it was hard to want to stifle the open dialogue.
It was very gratifying to me to have people come up to me in the halls of the convention centre later on (and even days later) and thank me for giving this topic a spot to be explored. Even folks that weren’t in town yet when the session was on, but knew about it and recognized me from the session description and wanted to talk about it further. This was a very new experience for me and I was thrilled that the little idea that kept me up at night last summer had grown to be this thing that people wanted to talk about. We even got interviewed by the Austin Chronicle about our session as one of the trending topics at SXSW this year.
I haven’t talked to Chris about it yet but it seems obvious to me that we should submit a followup to the session as there are plenty of things we didn’t have time to get to that we wanted to explore…not to mention the feedback we’ve gotten from people in person and online. So that’s got me excited to go back to Austin in 2011 even more now.
The rest of my time in Austin was a blur…five more days of amazing times with amazing friends…including a special trip to the Salt Lick BBQ in Drifwood, Texas:
where I got so see my pal Josh propose to his longtime girlfriend Traci:
spending time at the Social Media Clubhouse with lots of amazing people:
of course the parties that SXSW is famous for:
some burlesque performers showed up to make a fun night out even livelier:
I even managed to get on TWIT.Live…twice!
While this SXSW didn’t see me have the photographic output I usually create (my DSLR was still in the shop post-Olympics), there was no shortage of other types of content creation while in Austin. Dave Olson and I recorded a marketing-themed podcast while on the Social Media Clubhouse bus about our experiences at SXSW and along with Kris Krug, also shot some footage out at the Clubhouse about our recent Olympic experiences which might end up in the With Glowing Hearts documentary.
It was a very special SXSW experience for me this year…in many ways surreal. Big thanks to all my friends (new and old) that helped to make it so memorable with an extra special thanks to Chris and his lovely wife Kristie who were amazingly generous to me. I’m looking forward to seeing them again soon at Northern Voice.
Tonight, Chris Heuer and I recorded a brief podcast as part of the lead up to our SXSWi Core Conversation, called “Do cool kids leave when the suits arrive?”. It’s intended to give attendees a little insight into the session we’ll be having on Friday, March 12, 2010.
You can read my original submission (from back in July). Unfortunately, our session won’t be a full panel with all the speakers I had originally proposed, but a few of them are hoping to still come out and be a part of the conversation. If you’re going to be in Austin, we’d love to have you come out at 3:30pm and join us. Have a listen:
SXSWi 2010: Do Cool Kids Leave when the Suits Arrive?
Not quite sure yet how the folks at SXSW will utilize this podcast (they asked for it) but I thought we should post it here.
I’m excited to report (really? report?) that my submission to SXSW Interactive 2010 was accepted as a Core Conversation. This is a little different than my original panel suggestion in that it’s meant to be an open conversation with those attending with myself and another panelist discussing our topic, “Do Cool Kids leave when the Suits arrive“. This is exciting and scary at the same time as it means I’ll be a more active participant than just a moderator as originally intended. It also means that I have to narrow down the other participants I had originally hoped to have on the panel. That’s going to be a tough choice as they all brought something unique to the session. Hopeful, they’ll all still be attending and assuming there aren’t any session conflicts, can still participate in the conversation.
This further means that in just over three months, I’ll be eating most of my meals here:
Thanks to everyone that voted and helped me get selected. More details soon!
There is only a handful of days left to vote for the panels that *could* end up being presented at SXSWi next March. I’ve already outlined the panel I put together in a previous post but wanted to explain a little bit about why it’s important for your votes…even if you’re not planning on attending SXSWi, although I hope you will. I also wanted to highlight a few other people’s panels that I’m interested in attending and are just a small sampling of some of the amazing sessions and people that make SXSW as much fun and amazing as it is.
First of all, for the first time that I can remember, there is a now a Hot Ideas index of the popularly voted sessions. These are the sessions that appear to be the most popular although it’s unofficial. There are some pretty big names in that list all with very interesting topics, or at least internet famous panelists that will help ensure a great turnout to their panel.
Some friends that are putting together some compelling panel programming this year include:
- Josh Babetski, an evangelist for Mapquest (whom I met a couple years ago at SXSWi) has pulled together what looks like a stellar lineup of folks to talk about the future of mobile experiences now that many devices we use are all location & socially aware.
- Rob Cottingham has proposed to bring Teh Funny to Austin…I had the pleasure of seeing this earlier this year at Northern Voice and can only imagine how Rob will bring the audience to tears (of joy) if he gets a chance. Get a peak at his presentation from NV here
- Dave Olson who’s proposing a panel about Hitchhiking to the Boardroom which is the continuation of awesome that Dave brings to many events, including SXSW of which I’ve attended with him for the past couple of years. Dave also has posted an awesome roundup of panels you might be interested in voting for
- Adele McAlear, whom I also met in Austin a couple years ago, has proposed a panel whose topic has hit close to home a little too much lately – Posts Mortem: Death and Digital Legacy
- Joining Dave on another panel submission is my SXSW jedi master, Kris Krug (whom I actually met in Austin four years ago, not in Vancouver if you can believe it) along with the amazing Bev Davies to talk about Rock’n'Roll Photography.
- Like Kris, I also met Robert Scales in Austin during my first trip to SXSW and this year he’s proposed a fascinating panel discussing Social Media and the Olympics which I got a preview of at Northern Voice.
- My pals over at Sixty4Media aren’t proposing a panel, but have a great list of Vancouver folks proposing panels – hopefully they will make their way to Austin next year too
As you can see from this list, l know a lot of great people that have amazing panel ideas and submissions…one thing that really makes SXSW so special is that there are literally thousands of other people you and I don’t know attending that have equally amazing ideas about stuff that interests you. You can’t walk around the conference and not meet new people or experience new ideas…some would suggest that just walking around the conference is better than actually attending the panels. I wouldn’t disagree.
Voting closes on September 4th so if you haven’t already, please vote for my panel….I know that kind of sounds like that video professor guy on tv…but time is running out and I promise not to teach you how to use Excel.
